(Closed) How do you tell family members they aren’t invited? Send announcement or no?

Hello bees! I’m having a problem – The venue we’ve chosen now limits a wedding party to 50 people, so I have to cut some folks from my guest list.

I moved to one side of Washington and left all my friends and family members on the other side. We have decided to have our wedding close to our new home. Long story short, everyone coming to my wedding will be traveling, but I don’t quite consider it a “destination” wedding as it’s only 300 miles away. Here’s the problem…I have some cousins that I don’t speak to often that I’m probably going to have to cut out of my list. They talk to my aunts and uncles who I AM going to invite all the time (it’s their kids, duh!). I’ve heard that most announcements are sent AFTER the wedding. BUT I’m sure my whole family will be talking to eachother to plan the trip, and some of them won’t be invited.

DAMAGE CONTROL: How do I not invite some family members and what do I send them? Can I still send an announcement BEFORE the wedding? How would I word that so it doesn’t look like an invite? HELP!!!

yeah… tricky. whether you send an announcement before or after, people are going to wonder whats up. your aunts will likely rsvp for +4 to include their adult children once they find out an invite has not been extended. i think you might want to lay the ground work before you send out the invites. tell you mom and dad to spread the word that the event will be very small and no cousins will be invited. then id mail the announcements later. if you send them before, they will be more of a save the date and people will be looking for their formal invite…

I wouldn’t send announcements before. Just simply don’t invite the folks you don’t want in attendance. If they show up anyway, have a security guard show them the door since it is bad manners on their part to assume they are invited. The ones you want in attendance, send them a regular invite and make sure that the mailing envelope and custom printed reply card are both very clear on who is invited. If they still don’t get the picture, that’s not your fault since you did everything you could. It’s out of your hands at that point and they have just make themselves look bad, not you.

I would suggest having your family spread the news by word of mouth. You can also put something on your website that indicates that the wedding is only for guests who were specifically addressed on the invitations.

we had a small wedding and couldn’t invite a lot of people. my mom keeps in touch with my family often, so when she talked to them about me getting married she’d always say, “it’s going to be a very small wedding, she’d tell them our reasons, and then say that not a lot of family will be able to be invited. not always a good reaction from everybody, but it’s what you get for having a small wedding.

we sent our announements out after the wedding. some of our family members even sent gifts before the wedding, knowing full well they weren’t being invited.

I think the best thing to do in this situation is talking to people directly. I think if you’re close with your aunts and uncles you could explain how much you would love to be able to invite everyone and how you’re sad that you won’t be able to see your cousins but that you have a very very limited guest list due to capacity.

That makes it seem less like you DON’T want to invite your cousins (even if it is true) but that you simply CAN’T.

However the only place this could get kind of sticky is if you do invite some cousins that you have contact with and not others – I think the best way to justify it would be to incorporate them somehow. For example ask Cousin Suzy to help with set up or hair or whatever (make something up if necessary) that way it makes more sense for her to be there.

I have the same situation. I spread the word early that I couldn’t invite everyone…My aunts & uncles are invited, but not their adult children…its going to be awkward with some, but I just can’t invite everyone. I have cousins that live across the street from me that I really don’t speak to. Sure we wave at each other from afar, ut it’s been years since we’ve had an actual conversation. I’m expecting to get some flack for it, but the ones that complain are the ones that would criticize the wedding anyway, so I’m trying to let it go…

not everyone is going to be happy with what you are going to have to do…

By announcement do you mean save the date? In that case, only send save the dates to those invited to the wedding (if they aren’t invited they don’t need to save the date). If by announcement you mean a newspaper announcement, yes that goes after the wedding. If you just mean getting the word out to the family that you’re engaged and getting married I would say word of mouth is your best best.

In some areas, newspaper announcements are printed before the wedding. Some areas do it after. There is no solid rule as to how it is done. I believe the OP is talking about the old fashioned tradition where announcement cards (that looked similar to an invite actually) were mailed out on the day of the wedding to anyone who was not invited. If you ask your grandparents, they should know what these are as they are foreign to the modern generation and have nothing to with save the dates which are a brand new concept.

Thanks guys! I’m glad I’m not the only one! I’ve been planning this whole wedding myself from top to bottom and this is the first real snag I’ve had!

And as for the announcements, I’ll send them out after the wedding, even though everyone that wasn’t invited will probably already know. But I’ll take your advice – I’ll have my folks spread the word early that it’s a small event, be very specific with those that are coming, and speak directly to those who aren’t invited to tell them why to avoid hurt feelings.